


imprisoned thou didst painfully remain a dozen years

by soyuz



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Episode: s11e16 Goodbye Farewell and Amen, M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4740998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soyuz/pseuds/soyuz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I...I've been sitting with you," he confessed,  uncomfortably aware he was over-enunciating each word in the manner of the intoxicated. "For an hour or so. You were crying out in your sleep."</i>
</p>
<p>Charles and Hawkeye talk. Set during GFA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	imprisoned thou didst painfully remain a dozen years

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during GFA, although I've taken some liberties with the order of events during the episode.  
> Both the title and the quotation that Charles is butchering are from Act 1, Scene 2 of The Tempest.

"And," Charles slurred to himself as he smoothed Pierce's sweat-dampened hair back from his forehead, "for thou wast a spirit too delicate to act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, refusing her grand...something...she...ah, damn, how's it go?" He leaned over to the still for a refill, trying not to jostle Pierce overmuch, but the unlikely Ariel still stirred in his sleep.

"Charles," Pierce muttered, his eyes still closed, "since I'm pretty sure you are even more sloshed than you were when I went to bed, I am going to ignore the fact that you are stroking my hair and mangling Shakespeare quotations while I'm sleeping. But is there any way you could be quieter while you do it?"

"I am not mangling anything, you...crude person," Charles snapped, as he waved his glass around in indignation, somehow only spilling a couple drops onto Pierce's blanket.

"Oh, now that's telling me." Pierce rolled over onto his side. "Go away and leave me alone."

"Pierce, you were having a nightmare!" Charles insisted, pushing on his shoulder with a little more force than he intended, and Pierce fell back against the cot. His eyes snapped open. Sitting bolt upright, he grabbed Charles by the collar of his t-shirt, and yanked him forward so their faces were mere inches apart. The martini glass that Charles had been holding flew in the opposite direction, making a miraculous safe landing atop Hunnicutt's bed.

"I am _constantly_  having a nightmare," Pierce snarled. "I am having a nightmare right _now._ That doesn't mean I need you to _beat_ me out of it. Go to bed, or go back to your bender, I don't care, just _go away_." Despite his angry dismissal, Pierce's grip on his collar didn't loosen, so Charles began to explain, haltingly.

"I...I've been sitting with you," he confessed,  uncomfortably aware he was over-enunciating each word in the manner of the intoxicated. "For an hour or so. You were crying out in your sleep. It was...somewhat alarming. It seemed to, ah, calm you when I spoke, so I...was merely reciting..." Charles closed his eyes for a moment. "It's simply that I wanted some peace and quiet so I could listen to my records..." Pierce continued to stare at him wordlessly, letting the lack of music in the Swamp speak for itself, so Charles went on, feeling as if the words were being dragged from him. "I didn't want anyone else to hear you, to...take you away again. You know the colonel would call Dr. Freedman back, and...we're so close to the end, now."

"What does it even matter to you?" Pierce whispered, a catch in his voice.  "Why are you pretending that any of this actually gets through to you?" His fingers curled even tighter around Charles' collar, and Charles idly wondered if he were going to rip it. "Afraid to be short a surgeon again? I'm sure the three of you could handle things just fine without  me— like you said, we're almost done here. What do you even care about what happens to me?"

Charles licked his lips, achingly aware of the other man's hot breath against his nearly numb face. Ever so tentatively, he moved one of his hands to Pierce's lower back, the worn cotton of his t-shirt soft under his fingertips. "You know damn well how much I care, Pierce," he said hoarsely, barely daring to breathe the words. "I'm only — only trying to protect you."

He watched, transfixed, the way Pierce's throat moved as he swallowed, the way a bead of sweat trickled down from one temple. Alcohol and grief and exhaustion and Pierce's insistent proximity were making him dizzy, delirious—

"Why did you really break it off with Martine?" Pierce asked him quietly.

"I-I'm sorry?" Charles stammered.

"Pretty French girl? Red Cross? Somewhat questionable taste in men? You two were getting hot and heavy, and then you panicked. It was like three weeks ago, Charles, don't tell me you've already blocked it out."

Charles tried to draw back in defense, but Pierce held him fast.

"As I said when you and Hunnicutt badgered me about it at the time," he began, striving for even a hint of his usual starch, "we were simply incompatible, due to the differences in our back—"

"No, no, no, don't give me that line of bullshit about the glorious Winchester pedigree again, I beg you. " Pierce's voice stayed low and intimate, despite his flippant words. "I know you're capable of standing up for yourself and doing the right thing when it's something that really matters. You were incompatible, sure, but why? What is it that you actually want, Charles?"

"Pierce," Charles whispered, feeling terrified and euphoric and far, far too intoxicated for this a conversation taking place on as many levels as this, "I..." There was a sudden burst of loud, laughing voices in the compound, far too close to the door of the Swamp, and the two men flew apart, the fragile moment shattered.

"It's all right," Pierce murmured, after listening intently for a moment,"it's just Rizzo and and Bigelow leaving the O Club." He scrubbed a hand over his face and looked around the darkened tent. "Where the hell is B.J.? Did he get discharged and abandon me again?"

"He's, ah, in post-op still," Charles replied, thrown off-balance from the sudden change of subject. "You're on at seven."

"Then this would be a fabulous time for both of us to be _sleeping._ " Pierce fell back on to his cot with a heavy sigh. "Me over here with my nightmares and screaming, and you over there with your spilled gin and denial and...broken records?" He raised his eyebrows at Charles with bleary interest. "My, you  _are_ having an interesting evening."

"To hell with you, Pierce," Charles shot back, but he was too exhausted, too drunk, and too confused to summon any real venom by this point.  "Move — move over." He flopped down next to Pierce, the cot creaking dangerously under their combined weight.

"Ow, what are you — that is my _arm_ , Charles, I need that —" Pierce sputtered, pushing at Charles until he was at least halfway off the cot. Although it occurred to Charles that the position would have been quite uncomfortable if he hadn't been hitting the still's finest for the last several hours, he was quite complacent to close his eyes and nestle in against the steady warmth radiating from Pierce. "Okay, _no_ , you are not sleeping here. Charles, come on, you _know_ we can't." There was a hint of pleading in Pierce's voice. "You have to get up."

"But what if you should have another nightmare?" Charles mumbled, the end of the word turning into a yawn.

"Look, Winchester, by some miracle we've both made it this far without a blue discharge, so let's not push our luck." When the only reply to this was a snort of sleepy amusement, Pierce rolled over until both his knees were against the bigger man's hip. "Watch your hands," he muttered, and shoved Charles the rest of the way off the cot.

Charles let out a not terribly dignified whine as he slid down to the dirty floor, and was rewarded by his bunkmate's pillow landing on top of his head. "G'night, Pierce," he whispered.

"Night, Charles."

"...refusing her grand _hests_ , she did confine thee, that's it..."

"Go to sleep _,_ Charles."

***

B.J. moved as quietly as he could when he entered the Swamp just after seven. The colonel had come to relieve him a few minutes before his shift was due to end, as he had changed the duty roster around to give Hawkeye a few more hours of rest. It was B.J.'s fervent hope that his tentmates would still be dead to the world, and that he would be joining them as soon as possible.

The sight that greeted him as he stepped through the door was not exactly what he expected.

Charles's cot was empty, and apparently unslept in. Charles typically made his bed within moments of rising, unlike his fellow Swampmen, so this in itself was not too alarming. What was unusual was the shattered remnants of a shellac record scattered around his record player, and a crumpled, bloody pile of surgical whites, still on the floor. Such sloppiness was not like Charles at all, and mildly concerning.

The most unusual sight of all, however, was the fact that his two fellow surgeons lay on the floor next to Hawkeye's cot, fast asleep. Hawkeye was tangled up in blankets, having apparently rolled off the bed at some point during the night. Charles was curled up against Hawkeye's back, an arm draped over his abdomen, lightly snoring.

B.J. let out a little groan of distress. While he had suspected that Hawkeye was not in nearly as sound of a mental state as he was pretending, and he certainly wasn't going to begrudge him finding comfort anywhere he could, the fact remained that the two officers were in an extremely compromising position. It was morning, the camp was stirring, anyone could walk in...He was going to have to wake them, awkward as it might be.

He looked at Hawkeye's face, peaceful in sleep, all of the manic tension that had been there for weeks erased at least temporarily.

B.J. sighed. He'd give them five more minutes.


End file.
